Support apparatus

ABSTRACT

A support apparatus includes a base portion, a rotation shaft and a bracket portion. The base portion is attached to a device. The bracket portion is coupled to the base portion by inserting the rotation shaft through the bracket portion and the base portion, and the rotation shaft is perpendicular to the base portion. The bracket portion is rotatable using the rotation shaft as a pivot. The bracket portion includes a hinge, a rotation shaft and a stand. The hinge is secured to the base portion by the rotation shaft. The rotation shaft is inserted into the hinge and the rotation shaft is perpendicular to the rotation shaft. The stand is coupled with the two ends of the rotation shaft. The stand supports the device with a predetermined angle between them. The stand can be rotatable so that the device stands relying upon either one of the four sides and the stand.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is based on, and claims priority from, TaiwanApplication Serial Number 94143426, filed Dec. 8, 2005, the disclosureof which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of Invention

The invention relates to a support apparatus and, in particular, to asupport apparatus that selectively supports a device to stand on anarbitrary side at an adjustable angle.

2. Related Art

Conventional tablet personal computers (PC) usually do not have supportapparatuses; only very few of them have support apparatuses. Theso-called support apparatus is just an additional base portion orauxiliary device to support the tablet PC. Another alternative is to usea simple bracket portion to support the back of the tablet PC. However,the base portion, the auxiliary device, or the bracket portion usuallycan only support the tablet PC in a single direction. It is impossiblefor the tablet PC to selectively stand on an arbitrary side for displayimages. The additional base portion and auxiliary device occupy spacewhen they are not in use; therefore, they become obstacles in this case.Moreover, when adjusting the inclination angle of the image, the userhas to hold the support apparatus with one hand and adjust the angle ofthe tablet PC with the other. It is very inconvenient.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An objective of the invention is to provide a support apparatus so thata device can selectively stand on an arbitrary side with a differentsupporting direction.

Another objective of the invention is to provide a support apparatus sothat the user can adjust the inclination angle of the device by exertinga force on the device without holding the support apparatus.

A further objective of the invention is to provide a support apparatusthat is installed directly on the device. Its volume is so small that itdoes not occupy too much space.

In accord with the above-mentioned objectives, the disclosed supportapparatus includes a base portion, a rotation shaft, and a bracketportion. The bracket portion is coupled to the base portion by insertingthe rotation shaft through the bracket portion and the base portion, andthe rotation shaft is perpendicular to the base portion. The bracketportion is rotatable using the rotation shaft as a pivot. The bracketportion includes a hinge, a rotation shaft and a stand. The hinge issecured to the base portion by the rotation shaft. The rotation shaft isinserted into the hinge and the rotation shaft is perpendicular to therotation shaft. The stand is coupled with the two ends of the rotationshaft. The stand supports the device with a predetermined angle betweenthem. The stand can be rotatable so that the device stands relying uponeither one of the four sides and the stand.

The disclosed support apparatus further has a positioning device,including two connection bodies with matching shapes on the base portionand the bracket portion. The positioning device temporarily fixes therelative position between the base portion and the bracket portion.

The disclosed support apparatus further has a torque controller disposedbetween the hinge and the rotation shaft. When the rotation shaftrotates over a predetermined angle, the torque controller is in actionto distort and store the torque.

The bracket portion of the disclosed support apparatus and the restingplane has at least one contact point.

The bracket portion of the disclosed support apparatus is coupled to therotation shaft via the bracket portion.

The two connection bodies in the disclosed support apparatus are apositioning bump and a positioning hole.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features, aspects and advantages of the invention willbecome apparent by reference to the following description andaccompanying drawings which are given by way of illustration only, andthus are not limitative of the invention, and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a three-dimensional exploded view of the disclosed supportapparatus;

FIG. 2 is a schematic three-dimensional view of the assembled supportapparatus in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 provides both front and side views of the support apparatus inFIG. 1 in the rotation state;

FIG. 4 is a three-dimensional exploded view of the support apparatus inFIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a three-dimensional exploded view of the support apparatus inFIG. 4; and

FIG. 6 is a side view of the support apparatus in use.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention will be apparent from the following detaileddescription, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings,wherein the same references relate to the same elements.

The directions and angles referred in this specification are based uponthe accompanying drawings. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the device900 is in the 0-degree position when it is disposed horizontally, in the90-degree position when it is rotated clockwise by 90 degree, in the180-degree position when it is rotated clockwise by 180 degrees, and inthe 270-degree position when it is rotated clockwise by 270. Otherangles are defined in a similar way.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the disclosed support apparatus includes abase portion 100, a rotation shaft 200, and a bracket portion 300. Thesupport apparatus is mounted on the device 900 with the base portion100. The rotation shaft 200 is perpendicular to the base portion 100.The bracket portion 300 is coupled to the base portion 100 via therotation shaft 200. The bracket portion 300 can rotate about therotation shaft 200 relative to the base portion 100.

The bracket portion 300 includes a hinge 310, a rotation shaft 320, twostand bases 330, and a stand. The bracket portion 300 couples the hinge310 to the base portion 100 using the rotation shaft 200. The hinge 310rotates with respect to the base portion 100 using the rotation shaft200 as a pivot. The rotation shaft 320 is inserted into the hinge 310,perpendicular to the rotation shaft 200. The two stand bases 330 arecoupled to both ends of the rotation shaft 320. The stand 340 isdisposed between the two stand bases 330. FIG. 1 does not show theoverall shape of the stand 340. As long as the weight and volume of thedevice 900 are taken into account, the stand 340 can have an arbitraryshape, such as those shown in later drawings. The bottom of the stand340 is preferably to be parallel to the disposing edges of the device900.

As shown in FIG. 6 a, the bottom of the stand 340 touches against theresting plane when using the disclosed support apparatus. One imposes aforce on the device 900 to make the angle between the device 900 and theresting plane larger than the minimal angle θ0 that is required tosupport the device 900. Afterwards, when the force is removed from thedevice 900, the friction between the rotation shaft 320 and the hinge310 fixes the angle between the stand 340 and the device 900. This fixesthe angle between the device 900 and the resting plane. When rotatingthe device 900 from its horizontal position to the vertical position(FIG. 3), the bottom of the stand 340 touches against the resting planeand one rotates the device 900 using the rotation shaft 200 as a pivot.The inclination angle between the device 900 and the resting plane isadjusted according to the above-mentioned steps, releasing the force andsupporting the device 900 in its vertical position. Alternatively, thedevice 900 can be rotated by 180 or 270 degrees using the rotation shaft200 as a pivot. The points at the corners of the device 900 in thedrawing are used to indicate the rotation states of the device 900. Inpractice, one only needs to rotate the device 900 according to the realsituation. When the bottom of the stand 340 touches against the restingplane, they preferably have more than one contact point for theconvenience of exerting a force on the device 900 and rotating it. Asshown in FIG. 3, the contact between the stand 340 and the resting planeis a linear contact parallel to the sides of the device 900.

In order for the device 900 to be rotated to stand on an arbitrary sideand the device 900 and the support apparatus to stand in a more stableway, a positioning device 400 is further disposed between the baseportion 100 and the bracket portion 300. The positioning device 400includes at least two connection bodies with matching shapes on the baseportion 100 and the bracket portion 300, respectively. The positioningdevice 400 temporarily fixes the relative position between the baseportion 100 and the bracket portion 300. The positioning device 400 hasa plurality of positioning holes 410 on the base portion 100 and aplurality of positioning bumps 430 on the bracket portion 300. Thepositions of the positioning holes 410 correspond to those of thepositioning bumps 430. They are used to fix the bracket portion 300, sothat the supported device 900 is fixed in the 0-degree, 90-degree,180-degree, or 270-degree position. Using the elasticity of the baseposition 100 or the bracket portion 300 or an additional elastic body600, the positioning bumps 430 fall into the positioning holes 410 whenthe device reaches a predetermined position, temporarily fixing therelative position between the base portion 100 and the bracket portion300.

FIG. 4 shows an embodiment of the disclosed support apparatus. It isfeatured in that the bracket portion 300 further includes a torquecontroller 350 between the hinge 310 and the rotation shaft 320. Inaddition to the friction between the rotation shaft 320 and the hinge310 to control the torque of the stand 340, the torque controller 350 isused to control the torque of the stand 340. The use of the torquecontroller 350 provides the disclosed support apparatus with twotorques. In the following, we use drawings to explain this embodiment.The description of the parts that are similar to the previous embodimentwill be brief.

As shown in FIG. 4, the torque controller 350 uses a coil spring,disposed between the hinge 310 and the rotation shaft 320, e.g., betweenthe cam on the hinge 310 and the cam on the rotation shaft 320 (notshown). When the rotation shaft 320 (stand 340) rotates more than apredetermined angle θ1, the torque controller 350 starts to act due tothe squeeze or stretch of the two cams, deforms and stores a torque. Toadjust the angle of the device 900 back to the upright position, thetorque controller 350 releases the stored torque as an elastic force,returning the angle between the stand 340 and the device 900 to theangle θ1. The elastic force generated by the torque controller 350 isslightly larger than the friction between the hinge 310 and the rotationshaft 320.

As shown in FIG. 6 a, the first torque between the hinge 310 and thestand 340 is provided by the friction between the hinge 310 and therotation shaft 320. When the angle of the device 900 is adjusted so thatthe predetermined angle θ1 between the stand 340 and the device 900opens up, the friction between the hinge 310 and the rotation shaft 320allows the stand 340 to stop at any angle between θ0 and θ1.

As shown in FIG. 6 b, when the angle of the device 900 is adjusted sothat the angle between the stand 340 and the device 900 exceeds thepredetermined angle θ1, the torque controller 350 deforms and stores atorque. Once the force to adjust the device 900 is released, the stand340 stops at the adjusted angle and the torque controller 350 keepsstoring the deformation torque.

As shown in FIG. 6 c, to adjust the device 900 to its upright position,the torque controller 350 releases the previously stored torque as anelastic force when a force is exerted on the device 900. This reducesthe required external force to be imposed on the device. Alternatively,one may use the resting side of the device 900 as the pivot and exert aforce to rotate the device 900 so that the bottom of the stand 340leaves the resting plane. In this case, the torque controller 350releases the previously stored torque as an elastic force, returning theangle between the stand 340 and the device 900 back to the originalangle θ1. The user can then re-adjust the inclination angle of thedevice 900.

As shown in FIG. 5, the disclosed support apparatus also includesseveral different torque controllers 350. In the following, we consideran example with two torque controllers: the first torque controller 351and the second torque controller 352. In this embodiment, the use of thetorque controllers 351, 352 provides the support apparatus with threetorques for adjustments. The torque controllers 351, 352 use coilsprings, disposed between the hinge 310 and the rotation shaft 320,e.g., between the cam on the hinge 310 and the cam on the rotation shaft320 (not shown). When the rotation shaft 320 (stand 340) rotates overthe predetermined angle θ1, the torque controller 351 starts to act dueto the squeeze or stretch of the two cams, deforms and stores a torque.When the rotation shaft 320 (stand 340) rotates over the predeterminedangle θ2, the torque controller 352 starts to act due to the squeeze orstretch of the two cams, deforms and stores a torque. To adjust theangle of the device 900 back to the upright position, the torquecontroller 350 releases the stored torque as an elastic force, reducingthe angle between the stand 340 and the device 900. The elastic forcegenerated by the torque controller 351 is slightly larger than thefriction between the hinge 310 and the rotation shaft 320. The elasticforce generated by the torque controller 352 is slightly larger than theelastic force generated by the torque controller 351.

As shown in FIG. 6 a, the first torque is provided by the frictionbetween the hinge 310 and the rotation shaft 320 when the angle betweenthe stand 340 and the device 900 is less than θ1. As shown in FIG. 6 b,the first torque controller 351 is in action to deform and store thetorque as the second torque only when the rotation shaft 320 (stand 340)rotates to between θ1 and θ2. As shown in FIG. 6 d, the second torquecontroller 352 is in action to deform and store the torque as the thirdtorque only when the rotation shaft 320 (stand 340) rotates to betweenθ2 and θ3. The second torque is slightly larger than the first torque,and the third torque is slightly larger than the second torque.

When adjusting the angle of the device 900 such that the angle betweenthe stand 340 and the device 900 falls between θ1 and θ2, the firsttorque controller 351 deforms to store the torque. When the force foradjusting the device 900 is removed, the stand 340 stops at the desiredangle. The first torque controller 351 remains deformed and stores thetorque.

When adjusting the angle of the device 900 such that the angle betweenthe stand 340 and the device 900 falls between θ2 and θ3, the secondtorque controller 352 deforms to store the torque. When the force foradjusting the device 900 is removed, the stand 340 stops at the desiredangle. The second torque controller 352 remains deformed and stores thetorque.

To return the angle of the device 900 back to its upright position, oneimposes a force on the device 900. First, the second torque controller352 releases the previously stored torque as an elastic force, reducingthe required external force and the angle to θ2. The user can select toadjust the angle of the device 900 such that the angle between the stand340 and the device 900 falls between θ2 and θ3 or within θ2. To obtainan angle within θ3, one only needs to impose a force on the device 900to increase the angle between the stand 340 and the device 900. Toobtain an angle within θ2, a force is imposed on the device 900. Thefirst torque controller 351 releases the previously stored torque as anelastic force, reducing the required external force and the angle downto θ1. Alternatively, one may use the resting side of the device 900 asthe pivot and exert a force to rotate the device 900 so that the bottomof the stand 340 leaves the resting plane. In this case, the torquecontrollers 352, 351 release the previously stored torques as elasticforces in sequence, returning the angle between the stand 340 and thedevice 900 back to the original angle θ1. The user can then re-adjustthe inclination angle of the device 900.

Likewise, as long as the space permits, the disclosed support apparatuscan include several different torque controllers.

Therefore, the user does not need to hold the support apparatus by hand.The user only needs to open the stand 340 to an angle larger than θ0.The device 900 then stands on the resting plane. If the user wants tofurther tilt the angle between the device 900 and the resting plane,he/she only needs to impose a force on the device until the desiredangle is reached. To return the tilted device 900 back to its uprightposition, the user only needs to impose a force on the device 900.

Within the technical scope of the invention, various embodiments can beimplemented. For example, the larger the angle between the stand 340 andthe device 900 is, the larger the angle between the device 900 and theresting plane is. Therefore, when the stand 340 is within the openingangle θ1, it is preferably for the device 900 and the resting plane tobe perpendicular to each other, as long as the stand 340 can support thedevice 900. The device 900 covers a wider angle range. Theabove-mentioned angles θ0, θ1, θ2, and θ3 are not restricted herein.They can be set according to practice. For example, θ0 is 0˜5 degrees,θ1 is 5˜30 degrees, θ2 is 30˜60 degrees, and θ3 is 60˜90 degrees.

In the above-mentioned embodiments, the positioning holes 410 and thecorresponding positioning bumps 430 are used as the positioning device400 with a 90-degree interval. If the resting plane is not horizontal,the positioning device 400 can be provided with a smaller angularseparation. The positions of the positioning holes 410 and thepositioning bumps 430 can be interchanged. Besides, the two structuralbodies with matching shapes of the positioning device 400 are notlimited to the positioning holes 410 and positioning bumps 430 mentionedherein. As long as the relative position between the base portion 100and the hinge 310 can be fixed, the tow structural bodies with matchingshapes of the positioning device 400 can be in the forms of saws orelastic chips (not shown).

In the above embodiments, two stand bases 330 are coupled to the twoends of the rotation shaft 320, and the stand 340 is then installedbetween the two stand bases 330. Nevertheless, the stand 340 can bedirectly coupled to both ends of the rotation shaft 320 to reduce thenumber of components. This can save the cost and shorten the productiontime. Moreover, there can be various kinds of pads 700 between theconnection shaft 200, rotation shaft 320, etc, so that the componentscan function smoothly.

Besides, an angle limiter 360 can be used between the rotation shaft 320(stand 340) and the hinge 310 to limit the largest rotation anglebetween the stand 340 and the hinge 310. Any person skilled in the artcan make modifications to the above-mentioned embodiments. For example,the fixing devices and methods for fixing the base portion 100 on thedevice 900 and for fixing the stand bases 330 and the stand 340 can bedetermined according to needs. All such implementations should beincluded in the scope of the claims of the invention.

The invention has the following advantages:

-   -   1. In view of the versatility of the device, the invention        enables the device to selectively stand along an arbitrary side.    -   2. The angle of the device is adjusted using a positioning        device, overcoming the problem of a non-flat resting plane.    -   3. To adjust the device to a desired position and inclination        angle, the user only needs to impose a force on the device        without holding the support apparatus.    -   4. The support apparatus has a smaller volume and is directly        installed on the device. No additional base portion or auxiliary        tools are need.

The invention being thus described, it will be obvious that the same maybe varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as adeparture from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all suchmodifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are intendedto be included within the scope of the following claims.

1. A support apparatus, comprising: a base portion installed on adevice; a connection shaft coupled to the base portion in aperpendicular way; and a bracket portion coupled to the base portionusing the connection shaft and rotatable with respect to the connectionshaft, the bracket portion including: a hinge coupling the bracketportion to the base portion via the connection shaft; a rotation shaftinserted into the hinge; and a stand coupled between the two ends of therotation shaft; wherein the stand and the device are separated by apredetermined angle to support the device on a resting plane, therelative position between the stand and the device is adjusted using theconnection shaft as a pivot, thereby selecting to stand the device alongan arbitrary side.
 2. The support apparatus of claim 1 furthercomprising a positioning device including two structural bodies withmatching shapes, located respectively on the base portion and thebracket portion, wherein the positioning device temporarily fixes therelative position between the base portion and the bracket portion. 3.The support apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a torque controllerdisposed between the hinge and the rotation shaft, wherein when therotation shaft rotates over a predetermined angle the torque controllerstarts to deform and store a torque.
 4. The support apparatus of claim1, wherein the stand and the resting plane has at least one contactpoint.
 5. The support apparatus of claim 1, wherein the stand is coupledto the rotation shaft using the bracket portion.
 6. The supportapparatus of claim 2, wherein the two structural bodies with matchingshapes are a positioning bump and a positioning hole.
 7. A supportapparatus, comprising: a base portion installed on a device; aconnection shaft coupled to the base portion in a perpendicular way; abracket portion coupled to the base portion using the connection shaftand rotatable with respect to the connection shaft, the bracket portionincluding: a hinge coupling the bracket portion to the base portion viathe connection shaft; a rotation shaft inserted into the hinge; and astand coupled between the two ends of the rotation shaft; a positioningdevice including two structural bodies with matching shapes, locatedrespectively on the base portion and the bracket portion, to temporarilyfix the relative position between the base portion and the bracketportion; and a torque controller disposed between the hinge and therotation shaft so that the torque controller starts to deform and storea torque when the rotation shaft rotates over a predetermined angle;wherein the stand and the device are separated by a predetermined angleto support the device on a resting plane, the relative position betweenthe stand and the device is adjusted using the connection shaft as apivot, thereby selecting to stand the device along an arbitrary side. 8.The support apparatus of claim 7, wherein the stand and the restingplane has at least one contact point.
 9. The support apparatus of claim7, wherein the stand is coupled to the rotation shaft using the bracketportion.
 10. The support apparatus of claim 7, wherein the twostructural bodies with matching shapes are a positioning bump and apositioning hole.